1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing device and information processing method, a service providing system, and a computer-executable program, and particularly relates to an information processing device and information processing method, a service providing system, and a computer-executable program, enabling individuals to exchange information with corporations and order merchandise via a community which is a group of individuals sharing common interests and objects, without disclosing personal information to the corporations, thereby enabling corporations to transmit advertisements to individuals or take questionnaires for example, via the community, so that the corporations can target market segments without checking personal information.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recent advancements in the Internet have come to allow users to order merchandise from corporations through e-mail or Web contents, send questions and requests to corporations and receive replies, and so forth. Also, corporations have come to carry out questionnaires, run advertisements introducing merchandise or services, and so forth, through e-mail or Web contents.
However, in the event that an individual orders merchandise from a corporation using e-mail or Web contents as the medium for the transaction, the individual must notify the corporation not only of his/her e-mail address, but must also provide personal information such as address, name, telephone number, and if necessary, credit card number, over the Internet. Consumers have shown some resistance to disclosing such personal information over the Internet. Also, in cases where the user sends messages such as questions or requests by e-mail, in which he or she requests a reply, the user is thereby disclosing his/her e-mail address to the corporation.
Further, in the event of corporations carrying out questionnaires with individuals or introducing products or services, the corporations would like to target a specific market segment in order to carry out questionnaires in a meaningful manner or place advertisements effectively, while keeping costs down. However, this requires personal information such as the age, sex, interest, etc., of the object, but the consumer often feels uneasy about giving corporations such personal information.
Also, conventionally, merchandise and services have been planned and marketed by the corporations, so even in the event that individuals make proposals for merchandise and services to the corporations, this was seldom realized, since the corporations could not foresee a great amount being sold. In the same way, in the event that several individuals wanted to join to buy already-existing merchandise in bulk, there has been the problem that it is troublesome to get enough members together.
For example, in the event that a corporations sends an e-mail to an individual introducing a product or a service as part of an advertising campaign, the user may welcome the advertisement if it deals with a field in which the user is interested and the product is beneficial to the user. On the other hand, the user might feel that such as advertisement is itself an invasion of privacy. This would lead to a counterproductive result in which the corporate image is diminished in the eyes of the user. However, until now there have been no reliable and unintrusive ways in which corporations could learn the types of information individual recipient users desired.